Anne Frank exhibition to help Vancouver youth connect discriminatory past to present

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      Our city still contends with numerous issues of discrimination: the marginalization and appropriation of First Nations people and culture, tensions between Asian and non-Asian communities, Islamophobia, homophobic attacks, and transphobic exclusion, to name a few. 

      Yet a citizen youth project called citizenU conducted from 2010 to 2013 by PeerNetBC and the city of Vancouver revealed that many local youth are oblivious to how these issues remain pervasive in the city.

      PeerNet BC co-executive director Romi Chandra Herbert told the Georgia Straight by phone that his organization is ensuring a better future for the city by educating the next generation about both the past and the present.

      "Often young people felt that Vancouver's…racism was something of the past and we felt that there was a way to connect real-life things that were happening today and for us to tell those stories," he said by phone.

      Accordingly, the non-profit social resource organization is addressing the issue in a multitude of ways.

      PeerNetBC is providing a global context to the discussion by bringing a travelling exhibition about the internationally famous Jewish diarist Anne Frank, who kept a now-published diary while hiding from the Nazis during the Second World War before she died in the Holocaust, to Vancouver's neighbourhood houses. Anne Frank: A History for Today will be at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House (February 16 to March 6), South Vancouver Neighbourhood House ((March 7 to 10, Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House (May 2 to 31), and Collingwood Neighbourhood House (June 2 to 19). (B.C. communities who are interested in hosting Anne Frank exhibit after June contact PeerNetBC.)

      The display consists of 34 panels featuring photos, quotes from Frank's wartime diary, and historical information to bring her story to Vancouver audiences.

      The Anne Frank: A History for Today exhibition will begin at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House.

      PeerNetBC also created a historical diversity tour of Vancouver to take families and youth to local sites where historical and contemporary discrimination have taken place.

      Pulling no punches, that includes everything from walking through Chinatown and Japantown to discuss the Chinese Head Tax and Japanese Canadian Internment to visiting Stanley Park to talk about the Komagata Maru (including the 2013 incident involving urination on the memorial) to explore discrimination against South Asian immigrants and the murder of Aaron Webster to address homophobia and gaybashings.

      "We want to actually take the stuff that the students learn in the class on to the streets so that it's actually real for them, that they're walking on the same path that some of those legislations restricted...people [from]," Chandra Herbert said.

      He added that they'll be taking a look at monuments that exist and which monuments that are facing challenges being created, such as Lord Stanley's statue in comparison to the Survivor's Totem Pole.

      "The most visited site in Vancouver are the totem poles in Stanley Park yet the plaques that talk about those totem poles talk about First Nations people in the past tense as if they existed before, not today," he pointed out.

      Chandra Herbert said they'll also conducting workshops that will enable youth to make films through workshops about monuments in the city, to address which stories are and aren't being told.

      "Once these films are created, there will be a screening that will take place in June and the young people will gather ideas around how things are named in the city and what politicians or decision-makers who are making the decisions on monuments and all these things, what are some things that they need to be conscious of and aware of," he explained. "So [they'll be] bringing recommendations to city council or the civic asset naming committee and pushing for more diversity."

      You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at twitter.com/cinecraig.

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